Hieronymus
AAQC-winning posts:
User ID: 419
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Hieronymus
AAQC-winning posts:
- Sexual-ethics scissor statements arising from an oversimplified view of sin [January 2026]
- Context for the evangelical approach to politics in the Trump era [November 2025]
- Consequences of the friend gradient toward the norm for social conservatives [July 2025]
User ID: 419
Well, it's not an essay – it's a novel. I think the antagonist's weak grip on this Martian tongue (I don't recall which of the two they are speaking in this scene) is symbolic and not just to make his argument look weak.
It's justified in universe because the protagonist is a philologist, specifically J.R.R. Tolkein with the serial numbers filed off, while the antagonists are mad scientists who aren't particularly trained in languages. They built a working spaceship with 1930s tech, learned a non-human tongue to at least a broken level, and survived long enough to argue with a planetary archangel/god, so they might be fools but they aren't idiots.
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